For the past seven years, David Guttenfelder has witnessed and documented the changing landscape of Afghanistan. Although mostly embedded with coalition troops, he has also covered the presidential elections, bodybuilders in Kabul, the state of Afghan prisons and daily life in the country. Guttenfelder is the chief Asia photographer for The Associated Press and over the past seven years has offered the general public a close-up, intimate look at the lives of troops fighting in the mountains and remote regions of Afghanistan.
A U.S. Army vehicle fires on Taliban positions on a mountain side, outside a base held by the Army's 2nd Battalion, 12th Infantry Regiment, 4th Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division in the Pech River Valley of Afghanistan's Kunar province, Wednesday, Oct. 28, 2009. (AP Photo/David Guttenfelder)
An Afghan helicopter flies low over sheep herders as it escorts another chopper carrying presidential candidate and former Finance Minister Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai from Kabul to the southern city of Kandahar for an election campaign stop Saturday Aug. 15, 2009. Afghans will head to the polls on Aug. 20 to elect the new president. (AP Photo/David Guttenfelder)
An Afghani young man speaks with U.S. Marines of the 2nd MEB, 2nd Battalion, 3rd Marines inside the village of Khwaja Jamal in Afghanistan's Helmand province Sunday June 28, 2009. (AP Photo/ David Guttenfelder)
U.S. Marines from the 2nd MEB, 1st Battalion 5th Marines move in formation through farm fields after landing by helicopter in an overnight night air assault near the Taliban stronghold of Nawa in Afghanistan's Helmand province Thursday July 2, 2009. Thousands of U.S. Marines poured from helicopters and armored vehicles into Taliban-controlled villages of southern Afghanistan Thursday in the first major operation under President Barack Obama's strategy to stabilize the country. (AP Photo/David Guttenfelder)
Soldiers from the U.S. Army First Battalion, 26th Infantry take an ambush position during an operation against the Taliban in the Korengal Valley of Afghanistan's Kunar Province on Wednesday May 13, 2009. (AP Photo/David Guttenfelder)
U.S. Marine Albert Rivas from San Juan, Puerto Rico and the 2nd Marine Expeditionary Brigade sits outside his tent at Camp Leatherneck in Afghanistan's Helmand province Tuesday June 9, 2009. (AP Photo/David Guttenfelder)
A police officer from the Afghan National Police stands guard at a police station in the town of Deleram in Afghanistan's Farah province Wednesday, June 10, 2009. (AP Photo/David Guttenfelder)
A U.S. Marine from the 2nd MEB, 2nd Battalion, 3rd Marines, checks behind a compound wall during a patrol near the town of Golestan in Afghanistan's Farah province Friday, June 12, 2009. (AP Photo/David Guttenfelder)
U.S Marines from the 2nd MEB enter a hole in the wall of a mud compound that they detonated to enter and search for Taliban fighters near Now Zad in Afghanistan's Helmand province Saturday June 20, 2009. On the left is CW02 John Daly of Collingdale, Pa. (AP Photo/David Guttenfelder)
A U.S Marine missile from the 2nd MEB strikes a Taliban position inside a mud walled compound near Now Zad in Afghanistan's Helmand province Saturday June 20, 2009. (AP Photo/David Guttenfelder)
U.S Marines from the 2nd MEB, 2nd Battalion, 3rd Marines walk through a mud walled compound as they search for Taliban fighters near Now Zad in Afghanistan's Helmand province Saturday June 20, 2009. (AP Photo/David Guttenfelder)
U.S Marines from the 2nd MEB, 2nd Battalion, 3rd Marines battle Taliban fighters inside a mud walled compound near Now Zad in Afghanistan's Helmand province Saturday June 20, 2009. (AP Photo/David Guttenfelder)
U.S Marine John Daly, right, of Collingdale, Pa. and from the 2nd MEB, 2nd Battalion, 3rd Marines is helped by a fellow Marine after injuring his ankle in a fall when Taliban fighters opened fire on him and his squad inside a mud walled compound during a gun battle near Now Zad in Afghanistan's Helmand province Saturday June 20, 2009. (AP Photo/David Guttenfelder)
U.S. Marines from the 2nd MEB, 2nd Battalion, 3rd Marines dismount from their vehicles during a battle against Taliban fighters near Now Zad in Afghanistan's Helmand province Saturday, June 20, 2009. (AP Photo/David Guttenfelder)
U.S Marine Daniel Hinther of Helana, Mont. and from the 2nd MEB, 2nd Battalion, 3rd Marines throws a hand grenade during close quarter battles with Taliban fighters inside a mud walled compound near Now Zad in Afghanistan's Helmand province Saturday June 20, 2009. (AP Photo/David Guttenfelder)
U.S. Marines from the 2nd MEB, 2nd Battalion, 3rd Marines stand guard along a wall in the village of Khwaja Jamal near their base near Now Zad in Afghanistan's Helmand province on Monday, June 22, 2009. Three years after its residents fled, the once bustling town of Now Zad is the scene of a stalemate between U.S. Marines and Taliban insurgents and an example of the challenges facing the U.S. administration even as it sends 21,000 extra Marines and soldiers to the south to try and turn around a bogged down, 8-year-long war. (AP Photo/David Guttenfelder)
Josh Habib, far left, a 53-year-old translator for the U.S. Marines, speaks with Afghan villagers and two Marines in the Nawa district of Afghanistan's Helmand province on July 2, 2009. U.S. troops in Helmand say companies that recruit and hire military translators are sending linguists to southern Afghanistan who are too old to serve in a theater of combat or who do not have the right language skills, which puts them and the U.S. forces they work for at risk. (AP Photo/David Guttenfelder)
A medic pours water on U.S. Marines from the 2nd Marine Expeditionary Brigade, 1st Battalion 5th Marines who were suffering from heat exhaustion on July 4, 2009 as they walked with heavy packs for miles in the Nawa district in Afghanistan's Helmand province. Both men recovered and were able to continue on with their fellow Marines. Taliban militants attacked a U.S. coalition base in eastern Afghanistan on Saturday with an explosives-laden truck that blew up outside the gates, sparking a two-hour gunbattle and killing two American troops, officials said. (AP Photo/David Guttenfelder)
U.S. Marine Cpl. Brian Knight, of Cincinnati, Ohio, with the 2nd Marine Expeditionary Brigade, 1st Battalion 5th Marines, pauses briefly in the heat to rest with his heavy pack filled with mortar equipment, ammunition, food, and water in the Nawa district in Afghanistan's Helmand province on July 4, 2009. (AP Photo/David Guttenfelder)
U.S. Marines from the 2nd MEB, 1st Battalion 5th Marines take defensive positions as they patrol in a village in the Nawa district in Afghanistan's Helmand province Friday, July 3, 2009. (AP Photo/David Guttenfelder)
A U.S. Marine from the 2nd MEB, 1st Battalion 5th Marines watch as Afghani residents of a village in the Nawa district in Afghanistan's Helmand province lead their cows across the main road Friday July 3, 2009. (AP Photo/David Guttenfelder)
Medics attached to the U.S. Marines from the 2nd MEB, 1st Battalion 5th Marines carry a Marine, who was overcome by heat exhaustion, to a medical evacuation helicopter in the Nawa district of Afghanistan's Helmand province Monday July 6, 2009. (AP Photo/David Guttenfelder)
U.S. Marines from the 2nd MEB, 1st Battalion 5th Marines detonate explosives to destroy a Taliban placed roadside bomb that the Marines discovered in a road in the Nawa district of Afghanistan's Helmand province Tuesday July 7, 2009. (AP Photo/David Guttenfelder)
U.S. Marines from the 2nd MEB, 1st Battalion 5th Marines run out to assist after a helicopter dropped an emergency water resupply outside a compound where they stayed for the night, in the Nawa district of Afghanistan's Helmand province, Wednesday, July 8, 2009. (AP Photo/David Guttenfelder)
The tattoo of a U.S. Marine Lance Cpl. Jordan Christie, of Washington, Ind., with Bravo Company, 1st Battalion 5th Marines, is seen through a hole on the back of his uniform shirt, as he stands guard at a compound in the Nawa district of Afghanistan's Helmand province, Wednesday, July 8, 2009. His shirt was ripped because he had walked for several days with a backpack during an operation. None of the Marines had a change of shirt and were waiting for resupply. (AP Photo/David Guttenfelder)
U.S. Marines from the 2nd Marine Expeditionary Brigade, 1st Battalion 5th Marines temporarily occupy an abandoned mud walled farm compound in the Nawa district of Afghanistan's Helmand province Friday, July 10, 2009. Fighting overnight between international troops and Taliban militants in central Afghanistan has left as many as 22 insurgents dead, police said Friday. (AP Photo/David Guttenfelder)
Supporters of Afghan presidential candidate Abdullah Abdullah gather to hear him deliver a campaign speech at a stadium in Kabul, Afghanistan Monday, Aug. 17, 2009. Afghans will head to the polls on Aug. 20 to elect a new president for the second time in the country's history. (AP Photo/David Guttenfelder)
Afghan people pass by a wall of election campaign posters in downtown Kabul, Afghanistan, Wednesday, Aug. 19, 2009, on the eve of the presidential elections. (AP Photo/David Guttenfelder)
Afghan women voters line up to cast their ballots at a mosque made into a polling station in Kabul on Thursday Aug. 20, 2009. Afghans voted under the shadow of Taliban threats of violence Thursday to choose their next president for a nation plagued by armed insurgency, drugs, corruption and a feeble government nearly eight years after the U.S.-led invasion. (AP Photo/David Guttenfelder)
Afghan women voters line up to cast their ballots at a mosque made into a polling station in Kabul on Thursday Aug. 20, 2009. Afghans voted under the shadow of Taliban threats of violence Thursday to choose their next president for a nation plagued by armed insurgency, drugs, corruption and a feeble government nearly eight years after the U.S.-led invasion. (AP Photo/David Guttenfelder)
U.S. Marines from the 2nd MEB, 1st Battalion 5th Marines sleep in their fighting holes inside a compound where they stayed for the night, in the Nawa district of Afghanistan's Helmand province, Wednesday July 8, 2009. (AP Photo/David Guttenfelder)
Soldiers from the U.S. Army First Battalion, 26th Infantry fire mortars from the Korengal Outpost at Taliban positions in the Korengal Valley of Afghanistan's Kunar Province on Tuesday May 12, 2009. (AP Photo/David Guttenfelder)
Soldiers from the U.S. Army First Battalion, 26th Infantry take defensive positions at firebase Restrepo after receiving fire from Taliban positions in the Korengal Valley of Afghanistan's Kunar Province on May 11, 2009. Spc. Zachary Boyd of Fort Worth, Texas, far left was wearing "I love NY" boxer shorts after rushing from his sleeping quarters to join his fellow platoon members. From far right is Spc. Cecil Montgomery of Many, La. and Jordan Custer of Spokan, Wash, center. Defense Secretary Robert Gates says American soldiers have more than their military might and training on their side in the war in Afghanistan. Some have pink underwear. (AP Photo/David Guttenfelder)
SSG Alexander Pascual, right, from Kohala, Hawaii, from the U.S. Army First Battalion, 26th Infantry, patrols in the mountains of in the Korengal Valley in Afghanistan's Kunar Province Saturday, May 9, 2009. (AP Photo/David Guttenfelder)
Jamila, left, plays on a seesaw with children of other female inmates on the prison yard of Pul-e Charkhi prison in Kabul, Afghanistan April 17, 2008. Jamila, age 7, and her mother Najiba who is serving a seven year sentence for adultery, have been in prison for 10 months. There are 226 young children in Afghanistan's prisons, including many who were born there. They have committed no crime, but they live among the country's 304 incarcerated women. (AP Photo/David Guttenfelder)
An Afghan boy raises his clothes for U.S. Marines, from the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit, so that he can be checked before passing by a military position near the town of Garmser in Helmand Province, Afghanistan, Thursday, May 1, 2008. (AP Photo/David Guttenfelder)
The helmets, weapons, dogtags and boots of two fallen U.S. Marines stand at the end of a ceremony in their honor at Camp Bastion, in southern Afghanistan on April 22, 2008. 1st Sgt. Luke Mercardante, 35, of Athens, Ga, and Cpl. Kyle W. Wilks, 24, of Rogers, Ark. died on April 15 when their vehicle struck a roadside bomb in southern Afghanistan. (AP Photo/David Guttenfelder)
Seen through a dust covered armored vehicle window a humvee from the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit passes by as their convoy heads towards a forward operating base in southern Afghanistan Thursday, April 24, 2008. Some 3,500 U.S. Marines arrived in Afghanistan to help NATO's increasingly bloody fight against the Taliban. (AP Photo/David Guttenfelder)
U.S. Marines from the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit, one with the names of fallen colleagues tattooed on his back, bathe at a forward operating base in southern Afghanistan Saturday, April 26, 2008. Some 3,500 U.S. Marines arrived in Afghanistan to help NATO's increasingly bloody fight against the Taliban. (AP Photo/David Guttenfelder)
U.S. Marines from the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit listen to their commanding officer as they prepare to leave in convoy from a forward operating base in southern Afghanistan Monday April 28, 2008. (AP Photo/David Guttenfelder)
LCPL Jordan Mitchell of the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit plays a hand held video game lying on his cot next to his humvee at a forward operating base in southern Afghanistan Friday, April 25, 2008. Some 3,500 U.S. Marines arrived in Afghanistan to help NATO's increasingly bloody fight against the Taliban. (AP Photo/David Guttenfelder)
U.S. Marines, from the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit, take positions on a berm during a fire fight with Taliban positions near the town of Garmser in Helmand Province of Afghanistan Friday May 2, 2008. (AP Photo/David Guttenfelder)
U.S. Marines from the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit try to take shelter from a sand storm at forward operating base Dwyer in the Helmand province of southern Afghanistan Wednesday, May 7, 2008. (AP Photo/David Guttenfelder)
U.S. Marines, from the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit, return fire on Taliban positions near the town of Garmser in Helmand Province of Afghanistan on May 2, 2008. (AP Photo/David Guttenfelder)
British troops from 13th Air Assault Regiment and a U.S. Marine from the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit, forth from right, watch as palettes of water bottles drift to the ground on parachutes as NATO planes make a resupply airdrop to a forward operating base in southern Afghanistan on April 26, 2008. (AP Photo/David Guttenfelder)
Afghan boys play during a snow storm in Kabul on Sunday, Feb. 18, 2007. (AP Photo/David Guttenfelder)
Two Afghan women, wearing traditional blue burquas, look out from the doorway of their home during a snow storm in Kabul on Sunday Feb. 18, 2007. (AP Photo/David Guttenfelder)
An Afghan woman walks along a snowy path in her Kabul neighborhood, Afghnaistan, on Monday, Feb. 19, 2007. (AP Photo/David Guttenfelder)
Afghan police destroy bottles of alcohol in a field on the edge of Kabul, on Wednesday, Feb 21, 2007. Earlier this week Afghan authorities raided dozens of guesthouses suspected of illegally serving alcohol and arrested 14 people, including five foreigners. (AP Photo/David Guttenfelder)
Afghan men and boys gather on a Kabul hillside for a kite flying competition at dusk on Friday, March 10, 2006. Kite flying, once banned by the ruling Taliban regime, is a popular spring pastime. (AP Photo/David Guttenfelder)
An Afghan street sweeper works in the early morning in downtown Kabul, Afghanistan Sunday, March 12, 2006. (AP Photo/David Guttenfelder)
With plastic covering huge holes in walls of a civil war-damaged abandoned factory, now used as a gym, a young Afghan man exercises with a barbell in Kabul, Afghanistan on March 17, 2006. (AP Photo/David Guttenfelder)
An Afghan soldier uses a stick to whip people and knock them off a wall to prevent them from climbing into the compound of the Sakhy Shrine in Kabul, Afghanistan where a holy ceremony is held to bring in the New Year on Tuesday, March 21, 2006. According to the solar calander that Afghanistan honors, the year is now 1385. (AP Photo/David Guttenfelder)
Canadian troops from Alpha company, task force 306, and Afghan National Army members take rooftop positions in a rural area of Afghanistan's Kandahar province during a joint operation to search for Taliban fighters Monday, Nov. 20, 2006. (AP Photo/David Guttenfelder)
An Afghan girl watches as Canadian troops and Afghan National Army troops patrol near Mas'um Ghar in the Kandahar province of Afghanistan Friday, Nov. 24, 2006. (AP Photo/David Guttenfelder)
Afghan truck drivers line up for a security check outside Canada's Mas'um Ghar base as they arrive with gravel for a Canadian engineer road construction and base improvement project near the Mas'um Ghar base in the Kandahar Province of Afghanistan on Nov. 21, 2006. (AP Photo/David Guttenfelder)
Canadian soldiers look for roadside bombs in a corn field as they guard a Canadian engineer road construction project near the Mas'um Ghar base in the Kandahar Province of Afghanistan on Nov. 22, 2006. (AP Photo/David Guttenfelder)
Laundry hangs on lines attached from Afghan apartment windows to an abandoned construction crane in Kabul Friday March 4, 2005. (AP Photo/David Guttenfelder)
Afghans visit the tomb of the father of Afghan King Mohammed Zahir Shah on a hill over looking Kabul city scape, Saturday March 5, 2005. (AP Photo/David Guttenfelder)
An Afghan bread shop worker sells traditional Afghan flat breads to a customer in central Kabul Sunday May 8, 2005. (AP Photo/David Guttenfelder)
Afghan drug addicts, who say they have recently returned from Iran where they lived as refugees, smoke opium behind a mud wall in Kabul, Afghanistan Sunday May 15, 2005. Afghanistan, the world's largest producer of opium and heroin, on Sunday launched the first comprehensive survey of drug abuse among its own population. Surveyors will conduct 3,000 interviews of addicts and others and draw on data such as prison and hospital records to gauge a problem exacerbated by the return of refugees from neighboring Pakistan and Iran, the Ministry of Counternarcotics said. (AP Photo/David Guttenfelder)
An Afghan boy herds his sheep past the destroyed former Afghan King's Palace in Kabul next to the site of the planned new Parliament building Thursday, Sept. 8, 2005. Afghanistan's parliamentary elections will be held on September 18. (AP Photo/David Guttenfelder)
An elderly Afghan man visits the tomb of rebel commander Ahmed Shah Masood in Panshir to pay his respects on the 4th anniversary of Masood's assassination Saturday Sept. 10, 2005. (AP Photo/David Guttenfelder)
Afghan people run away as an Afghan military helicopter crashes in the Panjshir Valley after a memorial ceremony marking the 4th anniversary of rebel commander Ahmad Shah Masood Saturday, Sept. 10, 2005. Two passengers were injured, but no one was killed, in the helicopter which was carrying military and government officials from the memorial events. (AP Photo/David Guttenfelder)
People run away as an Afghan military helicopter crashes and catches fire in the Panjshir Valley after a memorial ceremony marking the 4th anniversary of rebel commander Ahmed Shah Masood Saturday, Sept. 10, 2005. Two passengers were injured, but no one was killed in the helicopter which was carrying military and government officials from the memorial events. (AP Photo/David Guttenfelder)
An Afghan helicopter burns after it crashed in the Panjshir Valley following a memorial ceremony marking the 4th anniversary of rebel commander Ahmed Shah Masood Saturday, Sept. 10, 2005. Two passengers were injured, but no one was killed, in the helicopter which was carrying military and government officials from the memorial events. (AP Photo/David Guttenfelder)
U.S. paratroopers from the 82nd airborne hand out election education materials from their humvees along the road in the Wardak Province of Afghanistan Monday, Sept. 12, 2005. The U.S. military have added troops to Afghanistan to boost security during the country's parliamentary elections on Sept. 18. (AP Photo/David Guttenfelder)
A boy looks down from a hole in the roof at another on the stairs of a Soviet-built cultural center in Kabul, Afghanistan where hundreds of Afghan people, who have returned from years of exile in neighboring Pakistan and Iran, now live Tuesday, Sept. 13, 2005. With the first parliamentary elections after a quarter century of war to be held on Sept. 18, denizens of refugees are looking to the vote for a way out of a life of squalid limbo. (AP Photo/David Guttenfelder)
An Afghan girl plays with a clothes line where her family lives in a Soviet-built theater in Kabul, Afghanistan where Afghan people, who have returned from years of exile in neighboring Pakistan and Iran, now live Tuesday, Sept. 13, 2005. With the first parliamentary elections after a quarter century of war to be held on Sept. 18, denizens of refugees are looking to the vote for a way out of a life of squalid limbo. (AP Photo/David Guttenfelder)
Afghan anti-Taliban fighters advance tanks to the front line along the White Mountains of Tora Bora in northeastern Afghanistan, Monday, Dec. 10, 2001. With U.S. fighter jets streaking overhead, anti-Taliban forces firing tanks and anti-aircraft guns Monday seized a key ridge near one of Osama bin Laden's hideouts in the majestic mountains near Pakistan. (AP Photo/David Guttenfelder)
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